Scotland Adventures

This past weekend I took the train up north to finally see some more of Great Britain. I made some friends earlier this semester up at St. Andrews so I decided to go visit them. I am part Scottish so I was really excited to finally go see some of my native homeland, and I wasn't dissapointed. Scotland is beautiful and interesting and I hope I have a chance to return when I have more time. (which would be...when?)

First I took the train to Edinburgh, one of Scotland's bigger cities, and met up with my friend Susan. She is an Emory friend who happened to be visiting her Scottish relatives for Thanksgiving. I was so excited to see her and have her show me the sites of Edinburgh! I really lucked out that afternoon, it was brilliantly sunny, although very cold (my entire trip could probably be summed up as very, very, cold). It was friday and the city was just putting up it's christmas lights, there was this cute little carnival going on downtown outside the train station. This is a picture of the carnival in front of the very large and gothic monument to Sir Walter Scott.
I was only in Edinburgh for an afternoon, not nearly enough. We had lunch (while I caught up on all the Emory news) poked around a street fair and then went up the Edinburgh castle. It is a hulking mass high on the hill, huge and dominating. We did a whirlwind tour, climbing to the top for the view, peeking into the church and the WWI memorial and stopping briefly to hear a knight speak on scottish fighting techniques (basically act tough and kick everyone's butt). It was a pretty impressive castle, reminded me a bit of Dover Castle. It get's dark even earlier there then here, the sun started to set aroung three! We did a little but of shopping on Princes Street, the high street and then hugged our goodbyes. She hopped on the bus back to her grandparents and I was off to St. Andrews.
I was very excited to see St. Andrews after hearing all about it from Jason and others. It is one of the oldest universities in the UK and home of the first golf course ever! It is a very cute little town, very very small. The entire town consists of about three streets. Still it is very much a college town, it has the highest concentration of pubs of anywhere in the UK! I could tell that they party hard there, I think they have to if only to keep warm! I was able to sample some Scottish pubs (quite similar to English ones) and some Scottish whiskey of course. Fun stuff.
Aside from the bars and the golfing, St. Andrews is known for the great castle and cathedral ruins. As you should know by now I love old things, especially cemetaries and ruins, so this was right up my alley. The castle is from the thirteenth century and only small parts remain. I didn't pay to go inside, I walked around the outside and took pictures. I think most of what was there could be seen from the outside anyways. I especially loved the cathedral ruins dating from the tenth to the sixteenth century. It was once Scotland's largest building, now there are only a few pieces left standing. They are perched on this cliff overlooking the North Sea. It was windy and near dusk when I went which made it very, very chilly but the view, the sea and the sky were spectacular. There is a large cemetary all around where the cathedral once was so I spent some time waundering around in there as well. The ruins were beautiful against the dusky sky, it was all very romantic to see. And I took a lot a lot of pictures, I am becoming a picture taking addict.

The one thing I will probably remember most about Scotland was how incredibly nice the people were. I don't mean my friends at St. Andrews (although they are very nice and fun) but the actual Scottish people. They were all so friendly, especially compared to the English! I ran into some trouble on my way back home and I don't know what I would have done without their help. Basically I needed to take a bus and two seperate trains to get home. The bus dropped me off at the train station at Leuchars (the closest station to St. Andrews) at which point I discovered that the station was actually closed for the day due to construction! There was a bus taking passengers to the next station but I missed it by about 30 seconds, the next one wouldn't be there until 1:30. I needed to take that train to get into Edinburgh to take my second train home at 2 pm, there was no way I could wait that long. I happened to meet another student from St. Andrews who had missed the bus and we tried to figure out what to do. Suddenly a man approached us, I think he may have been a professor and asked if we needed help. When we told him what had happened he offered to drive us himself to the next train station so we could catch the train! He had just gotten his wife onto the bus and felt bad for us being stranded there. It was so incredibly nice of him I was totally taken aback. And thanks to him I was able to actually make it home thank goodness. I am definatly a fan of the scottish. I snapped this picture out the window of the train as we were leaving Scotland. What a beautiful welcoming place it was.
My mother is flying in tomorrow morning, how exciting! We will do some sightseeing and other fun things but then it's really going to be time to really work hard- only three weeks to go!

Catching Up: Birthdays, Castles and Halloween, British Style

Hey Guys!
Life has been busy these past two weeks, hence the lack of updates. I wish I could say I've been off jet-setting around, but primarily I've been doing a lot of school work and fun things like that.
Some exciting things have happened lately though- in particular I celebrated my 22nd birthday last Thursday. When I first decided to come here I admit I was worried about being forced to spend my birthday alone in a strange city. Fortunatly this was not the case and I was able to celebrate with about twenty of my closest friends at my favorite bar, The Rocket. I was actually impressed by how many people ended up coming, friends I've made over the past month and half in class, in my dorm and through the Emory programss. Here is a picture which unfortunatly came out rather blurry, although that sort of suited the mood of the night as my drink kept being refilled. We drank snakebites (half beer, half cider with a shot of black current liquor- my new favorite drink), hung out and danced into the late hours. It was a really great birthday and it made me feel really lucky to know so many really awesome people here.
On Saturday we had the last of our Emory day trips, to Broughton Castle, a Medevial castle in Oxfordshire. What made this trip different from the rest of the stately homes we've been to is that Lord and Lady Saye are actually still in residence in the house. They are friends with our trip coordinator Rachel, and thus we were granted a private off season tour of the house. It is huge and drafty and historic of course. Also unlike other tours we were actually allowed to take pictures inside the house. Here is a picture of one of Lord and Lady Sayes guest bedrooms, it is called the Kings Room because, well because that is where the King used to stay back in the day. It was a gorgeous room with this elaborate hand painted chinese wall paper. Everything in the house was rich and opulent and historic, it was so cool to actually be able to get up close and personal with it all (I even got to try on a medeval battle helmut and sword). At the end of the tour we actually got to meet the Lord and Lady, my first brush with the English aristocracy. They were incredibly nice and normal, although they had a very ugly dog. Incidentally the Saye's informal last name is Fiennes, they are actually relatives of Ralph and Joseph Fiennes. This beautiful castle has been used in the filming of several movies including Shakespeare in Love.
It's finally getting cold here.This week has been mostly about paper writing, which unfortunatly caused me to miss out on Halloween festivities. Contrary to popular beleif Halloween IS celebrated in England, just not to the full extent it is in America. I don't beleive Trick or Treating is in fashion, and I haven't seen much about haunted houses. As far as I can tell Halloween is mainly an excuse for young adults to go out and party while wearing crazy costumes. It's a shame I missed it to because I had a good costume too...
This friday I am going to see some early Guy Fawkes fireworks, then I am off to the continent. I am spending my reading week in Prague and Budapest, so prepare yourself for some (hopefully) awesome stories on my return...

A weekend at the shore

Sorry guys ,I am starting to fall behind in my updating. Life is getting in the way as they say. This week has been crazy busy with school work so I haven't had a single moment until just now to sit down and reflect on this past weekend.
All day Saturday and Sunday I was away on an Emory sponsored trip. We visited several stately homes in the Kent countryside and spent the night in Dover. It was great fun because I got to hang out with all my favorite Emory kids and to meet a bunch of the Emory people who are studying up at St. Andrews in Scotland.
On Saturday we visited Knole House which is a palatial home owned by English aristocrats. It was once the home of Vita Sackville West, Virginia Woolf's lover for whom she wrote Orlando. I haven't read Orlando yet(it is sitting on my shelf) but the house was amazing. It is called a calender house because it has 365 rooms, 52 staircases and 7 courtyards. We only saw a fraction of that, all decorated in unbeleivable opulence. My favorite part were the hundreds of free range deer which roam the property with basically no fear of human contact.
After Knole we visited Chartwell House, which was the private home of Winston Churchill. It is a very pretty, cozy little house with excellent views of the Kent countryside. The house had really beautiful gardens, you can see me sitting in one of them in the big picture on the left. I spent a long time taking slightly pretentious, but very pretty, pictures of the flowers and the grounds.
Later that evening we rolled into Dover. Dover is a seaside town, right on the English Channel (it's where the Chunnel starts I think). I'm told on a clear day you can see all the way to Europe. Unfortunatly we didn't have a clear day so France is still a mystery to me. I think I've mentioned before how these Emory excursions are entirely paid for by the school. This is is amazing. For this trip they rented out an entire bed & breakfast for the group. They also treated us to a fantastically boozy Chinese food feast that night. I've honestly never seen or eaten so much chinese food before in my life, it was pretty fantastic. Later that night we all went down to the beach. It was very cold but very pretty, you could see Dover Castle glimmering up on the hill, and on the horizon lights of I like to imagine (but what almost certainly was not) France.
Early the next morning we walked up to Dover Castle. Dover is this hulking medeival fortress, which has been known as the key to England because of it's inconquerability. It was absolutly huge, I think we only saw a small part of the whole place. We took a tour of the secret underground tunnels used in World War Two for defense. Despite the fact that our tourguide was clearly stoned, the tunnels were pretty creepy, and we may have actually seen a ghost! We were also able to go to the top of the Keep, that is the highest tower in the castle, and look down over Dover and the surrounding lands. Sadly, it was still too foggy to see France!
After a gross lunch of fish and chips (ick) we visited one last site, a beautiful historic mansion call Igtham Mote. It doesn't have a whole lot of significance other then it is really pretty and has a cool Mote running around it. I think I would like my house to have a mote. You can walk around the house which is decorated in a cool, 1930's style and is very, very big. Very pretty gardens again; I've seen more gardens in the past month then in my entire life, yet I don't seem to get tired of them. Finally the bus too the exhausted lot of us home. It was such a fun and interesting weekend and it is always nice to get outside of London and see the rest of England.
So my adventures continue this weekend in Brussels and Amsterdam. I am excited but also tired. Every day of this trip is exciting and crazy and different but also takes so much energy. In some ways it is good I am only here for a few months, I'm not sure I could keep up this pace much longer then that. Although do not get me wrong: life here is so much fun. Every day is a new adventure in learning and living and it is exhausting and demanding but I am loving every single minute of it.

Day 13: Henry VIII: lucky in real estate, unlucky in love

Hi!
Today was another Emory event; an all day trip to Hampton Court Palace. The estate is located right on the Thames, about a 45 minute drive out of London. This is a beautiful palace built by Cardinal Wolsey, one of Henry VIII's chief advisors. Henry got jealous of its splendor and Wolsey was essentially forced to give Henry the palace as a gift (that's just the kind of king Henry was). Five of Henry's six wives spent time here before he got rid of them and it was also a home for Elizabeth I, James I and William and Mary most famously.
I must say it was a pretty impressive place as palace's go. The compound has over 300 rooms that would have housed Henry, his family, his courtiers and their families, his servants and his soldiers. It is just spectacularly huge. We of course didn't see it all, mainly Henry's entertaining rooms including a huge great hall and a room full of nothing but the antlers of various animals. One room is the haunted hallway where teenage Catherine Howard is said to have chased after Henry begging for mercy before she was sentenced to execution for her infidelity. I stood there awhile trying to pick up some supernatural vibes without success. There was an incredible chapel designed by Christopher Wren with a gold guilded ceiling. We also saw some of the private chambers, mostly belonging to the monarchs after Henry who used the palace. Apparently there used to be many many palaces lining the Thames, but most of them were knocked down to make way for housing developments and other more useful things. Could you imagine actually making the decision to knock down a palace and put up condominums? What a shame.
Unfortunatly they didnt allow photography inside the apartments, but I was able to photograph my favorite parts- the gorgeous grounds and gardens. When we first arrived it was pouring rain but by the end of the afternoon it was bright and sunny. London weather is the strangest I've ever seen, one minute it's pouring, the next it is sunny, the next it is sunny yet still somehow pouring rain. You pretty much just have to get used to getting wet. The oddly landscaped bushes and trees looked like something out of Alice in Wonderland. There were beautiful fountains and geese waundering around. There was a maze, which was actually original to the house. We waundered around in it, here is a picture of me lost. Eventually I found my way though. I wish I could post more pictures up here, this house was the most beautiful thing I've seen in London thus far. I really like Emory's study abroad program coordinator, Rachel, she is extremely knowledgable about everything we see. This trip made me very excited for the next Emory trip, an overnight to Dover two weeks from now.
Classes start tomorrow, very exciting! However I have no classes tomorrow so for me this mean catching up on sleep, laundry and grocery shopping. That may be the closest thing I've had to a normal day yet...

Day 8: Emory Rocks

When I was planning my trip to London the very very last thing I expected was to hang out with people from Emory. I didn't know any of them and my opinion of a lot of people from my school is not good. To my pleasant suprise I have been spending a lot of time with the Emory people who I've met here, and they are all pretty awesome. (Which is not to say I haven't met or hung out with people from other places, for example I have plans to go to Oxford with my roomate who is from the Phillipines).
Yesterday I was running around frantically trying to get my classes in order (with little success) when I ran into some cool people who invited me to the British Museum with them. I love the British Museum, it is amazing. It is stuffed full of unimaginable treasures from ancient Greece, ancient Egypt, ancient everywhere actually. And the place is enormous, I am not sure I will even be able to get through all of it during my time here. Luckily it is just a few blocks from my school, so I will be visiting quite a bit I think (lucky for me also that most of the british museums are free). Yesterday we really just made it through the headliners: the Rosetta Stone, the Elgin Marbles and the Maosoleum of Helikoneses (one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world actually!) I've seen all these things before but they are still amazing to me. And it also amazes me that they let you get so close to things and even take pictures. At the top here is a picture of me in front of a giant ancient mesopotamian horse man.
I haven't seen most of the museum but I did stumble onto what I am pretty sure will be my favorite room. The museums reading room is in the very center of the building and is this huge circular hall full of books. This is where they kept the national library until it was move into its own building. On the walls closest to the doors was a display showing all of the famous people who used to come here to read. It was essentially a whose who of British literature: Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, George Eliot, Arthur Conan Doyle, Yeats, Shaw, Hughes, Kipling, Forster, Welles. When they were exiles living in London Lenin and Trotsky would hang out here. Needless to say I was impressed. I think it is possible for anyone to come here and study so hopefully at some point I will come down and read with the Greats.
In the evening there was an Emory sponsored dinner event. Emory has an on site coordinator who plans cultural and historical events for the students who are here. We have some trips to stately homes, an overnight to Dover, theater visits etc. And it is all payed for by Emory, so I intend to take advantage as much as possible. We got to the restaurant a good 45 minutes early so we decided to walk around a bit. This is why I love London so much, all we did was walk around the block and we saw:
- The oldest surviving church in London, Saint Bartholomeus which is in the picture. This is Greater St. Barts but there was also a Lesser St. Barts in the circle which was actually a hospital and a church
-A private party for what looked like an actual Lord, in full regalia.
- The square where William Wallace (the scottish guy, from Braveheart) was drawn and quarted almost a thousand years ago. It is also where they used to burn Catholics at the stake and do all manners of executions. There was this great little pub called the Hand and Shears: last ale before the executioners. Also saw this interesting piece of public graffiti, I think it is supposed to be the queen, I'm not quite sure what the message being sent is, I just thought it was cool.
Dinner was excellent. It was at an Italian restaurant called Carluccios. Like I said, it was payed for by Emory so everyone went full out. I had an appetizer, steak and gelato for dessert. And quite a bit of wine. Everyone had quite a bit of wine, which made things even friendlier. There are about 25 of us studying in London, I didn't get to meet everyone but most of the people I did were very nice. By the end of the night I had an invitation to a club, plans for later on tonight, a potential trip to Bath lined up for Thursday and very very tentative plans to go to Rome. After dinner a bunch of us went out to a pub, but we had to turn it in early, as everything closes around here by midnight. I am so excited though, for all the potential fun there is to be had here!!! I just know three months isn't going to be nearly enough...